8*,0*5&$ ;&"<!#$
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'()*+,-$.$ /01(1)2$.$ 34)(056$..$ 78$905:1,2$
These
are the percentages
passing the four
state
far, the school
has met the QDI
standards for all
8*,0*5&$
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subjects except for Reading/Language Arts. 81.3%
tests across Starkville High School. Compared to
2011 scores, there was a general decrease in the four
of students taking math, 90.3 percent of students
taking U.S. History, 73.2 percent of students taking
subjects.
“With the four-by-four, we anticipated a decline,
Biology I, and 72 percent of students taking English
but we hoped to maintain the successful QDI (qualII state tests at Starkville High School passed. But
the students who did do well on state tests were
ity distribution Index) that we had in previous
years,” principal Keith Fennell said. “We knew that
once given incentives, thought up by Fennell, but
these incentives seemed to have disappeared.
in the transition of one schedule to the other that
it would take a little bit of experience to maintain
“The four-by-four brings about two test administrations each year, one in December and one in
that success.”
The school’s actual test results have not yet been
May, and the results coming from the Department
of Education are delayed,” Fennell said. “It makes
released to the public by the Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) but each individual
it difficult to accurately, in a timely manner, review
student’s results have not been embargoed. So
the data and get the incentives out.”

THANK
YOU
TEACHERS!
THANK
YOU TEACHERS!
Our teachers have enthusiastically responded to Super-

“Well, as I was the one who
unlocked YouTube, I would
approve of its use in the classroom.”
The words that some
Starkville High School students have been dying to hear
have finally been said by none
other than the new superintendent, Lewis Holloway. Holloway finds technology, such as
YouTube, to be a valuable asset
in the classroom.
“In my previous school district, teachers would film
classes,” Holloway said. “Then,
they would post it on YouTube,
so that if a child missed class
for whatever reason, they
could just find that channel
and watch class. One teacher
had 6,000 hits.”
In Tupelo High School, each
student has access to an iPad
throughout school. Holloway
feels that there is a place for
iPads, but educators should
look even deeper into the
question.
“We know that kids have
internet in the pockets,” Holloway said. “It’s just a matter
of bringing your own device at
time.”
As to the concerns about
YouTube, Holloway does see
some misuse in the future.
“With cell phone usage
and YouTube as well, there
shouldn’t be a strict no tolerance rule,” Holloway
invitation
to said. “On
the flip side, how are you sup-

Holloway’s
invitation
support the Starkville
have intendent
enthusiastically
responded
toto
Superintendent
Holloway’s
Foundation
for
Public
Education
with
a
$10
per
month
Starkville Foundation for Public Education with a $10 perdomonth donation
nation through salary deduction.
through salary deduction.
Let’s match their spirit in supporting SFPE and the

Starkville SFPE
Schooland
District!
match their spirit in supporting
the Starkville School District!
Donate online at www.starkvillefoundation.org or by mail:

posed to judge what is a proper use of a device and what is
not?”
Meanwhile, Holloway mentioned a program at a specially
called school board meeting
on August 23 that would allow teachers to order laptops
to be used in the classroom,
then taken home and used to
continue working on school
related things, such as entering grades.
“It wouldn’t be for the teacher’s personal usage,” Holloway
said. “It’s meant to make the
teacher’s job easier.”
As to other policies that concern him, the dress code does
not seem to leaving under
Holloway.
“I don’t see it repealed,” Holloway said. “To continue the
argument [against the policy]
distracts from the educational
opportunities.
“It’s a no-win situation, and
it causes controversy. ”
However, there is some
openings with lenience in

some of the standards.
“We’re willing to consider
blue jean Fridays across the
board,” Holloway said.
In 2014, school districts nationwide will be enforcing a
new set of standards, known
as Common Core, something
that Holloway agrees with.
However, he also feels it a little
much on school districts.
“We needed a common
core,” Holloway said. “But
we don’t need to reinvent the
wheel with it, and that’s what
it’s essentially doing. Here at
Starkville High, we are looking into reducing the number
of credits required to graduate, but nothing is set yet.”
Holloway finds that Starkville
School District is similar to his
old school district, and hopes
to make an impact on it. He
enjoys being a Yellow Jacket.
“There are great opportunities here [in the Starkville
School District],” Holloway
said. “We’re just trying to improve the school district every
single day.”
Holloway plans to continue
encouraging educational technology in the Starkville School
District beyond just this year.

to be governor and lieutenant
governor of Boys State.
At the end of the term,
the high schoolers gather as
a group once again to vote
which two of their own will be
elected to serve as “senators”
to the Boys Nation group,
which includes delegates from
states such as Alaska and Montana.
“It’s been my dream to go to
Washington D.C., so this was
an opportunity I couldn’t let
fly by,” Ames said. “I strongly
urged the other delegates at
Boy’s State to let me go and
represent Mississippi. It was
my goal from the beginning of
the program.”
Ames, through perseverance since the sixth grade, got
his wish and was voted as one
of the two Mississippi senators
to Boys Nation.
While there, the program
took him across Washington
D.C. to visit monuments and
museums, and, of course, the

Page 3 • 09-07-12

Stidham retires
By Kelley Mazzola
News Editor

Over the summer, most
teenagers would be lying on
the couch or be between vacations.
However, senior Rex Ames
channeled his energy into another direction. This summer,
Ames attended the program
Boy’s State in Jackson and Boys
Nation in Washington, D.C.
For Ames, this was a dream
come true. Boys State is a statewide program sponsored by
the American Legion, which
is a veteran’s group promoting
civil service and patriotism to
all ages.
Boys State brings high school
male delegates from across the
state to Jackson, where they
participate and witness the inner workings of the state government.
“You run around and do errands and odd jobs for people,” Ames said. “All you ask
is, ‘what do you need me to
do,’ and they tell you to do it.
It’s like being an intern.”
These delegates meet regularly to share their experiences among the politicians in the
Mississippi Capitol building,
as well as act as a legislature
to pass “bills” according to the
standards of the Mississippi
Legislature.
Later in the term, these delegates elect two of their own

Capitol building.
“My favorite thing at Boys
Nation was when we met the
President,” Ames said. “He
shook each of our hands and
then had to leave, but it was
still very nice. My other favorite thing was watching the
Senate and the House in session.
“Just watching from the gallery was fantastic.”
As a self-described political
person, Ames found the experience extremely rewarding
both as a high school student
and a citizen of the United
States.
“I would recommend Boys
State and Boys Nation to juniors,” Ames said. “It taught
me a lot about our state government, since I met the Attorney General as well as Greg
Harper. We [delegates] grew
very close, since we sat down
and ate meals together and
talked about things. I made a
lot of friends.”

As of last Friday, after 25
years as a director of Millsaps Career and Technical
Center, James Stidham has
retired to the simple life on
his horse farm here in Oktibbeha County.
“I’ve gotten old,” Stidham
said. “I know I signed a contract with the school district
last year to stay for this year,
but I just felt like it was my
time.”
Before becoming an nearpermanent presence at Millsaps, he started as a teacher
at Webster County, then rose
to be a director at the career
and technological center
there and remained in that
post for five years. After
that, he became the principal
for three years before arriving at Millsaps.
One of the programs that
he started in Millsaps is Career Technical Exploration, a
program that allows students
to rotate through the courses
offered at Millsaps, such as
Building Trades and Horticulture. However, in previous years the students participated in four courses that
they may have requested or
(as a new feature in the second semester of last year) six
courses. This year, the freshmen class will rotate through
all 10 of the courses, with
nine days with each teacher.
CTE came about when
Stidham presented the idea
to the education department
of Mississippi, in order to introduce CTE statewide. The
state department first implemented CTE in Millsaps,
granting money to fund this
expedition. However, with
the recession hitting its hardest in 2008 and 2009, the
funding was soon cut out of
the education budget, making CTE a unique feature to
Millsaps.
However, at the beginning
of this year, there was talk of
CTE being cut as a required
class to graduate, since it

“

“

@shsjacketbuzz

It’s a great loss
for the students
of Millsaps, and
the students of
the school district.
-Ray New

is required not by the state,
but by the Starkville School
District. Stidham still holds
faith in the program.
“I’m very passionate about
CTE,” Stidham said. “For
some kids, it’s the only opportunity for them to see
other options for their education. Some of them won’t
want to go to college, and
these classes would give them
a trade and a job to look forward to after high school.
CTE helps them make an
informed decision about life
after high school.”
Despite having programs
such as CTE dear to his heart,
Stidham’s favorite thing about
Millsaps is the faculty and
staff that he worked with.
“The faculty and staff are
outstanding,” Stidham said.
“We’re called the Millsaps
family, and there’s a reason
for that. When one of us is
happy, all of us are happy. If
one of us is hurting, we’re all
sad to see that.”
The faculty will miss him
just as Stidham will miss
them, even though it’s still
said that the Millsaps faculty

end-of-the-year
barbecue
will still be on at Stidham’s
farm.
“It was hard and tough,”
Rusty Coats, the Horticulture teacher at Millsaps, said.
“It was a surprise, and we’re
going to miss him. He’s done
a lot help with funding for
equipment and such.”
Patty Newsom feels similarly about Stidham.
“He will be missed sorely,”
Newsom told the Starkville
Daily News. “We were one of
the first three Teacher Academy programs to open in
Mississippi, and he supplied
me with all the technology
I needed to teach with, like
SMART Boards and computers, so that I could teach
my students how to become
teachers.
“On his behalf, we will always do what’s right and best
for the students because that
was his motto. He (will leave)
big boots to fill.”
Stidham plans to spend
his retirment with his seven grandchildren, showing
horses with them and helping
them grow.
“I’ve been showing horses
for 40 years,” Stidham said.
“I show and judge Western
competitions. It’s hard to do
both at the same horse show,
but I’ve done it before.”
One thing he is excited
about is the tractor that is
waiting to be used for a long
time after his retirement.
“My wife bought me a new
tractor,” Stidham said. “I’ve
never had a new tractor before, so that’s going to be
new.”

COME
SEE
US!

Ferguson back at SHS
By Jareth Murrell
News Writer

Sherre Ferguson’s Accelerated English III classes have
worked from the beginning of
the school year as per the lesson plan.
The only thing they lacked,
however, was their teacher.
“I had surgery, and as a result, there were complications
from the surgery,” said Ferguson.
The complications have
made Ferguson unfit for the
stresses of teaching.
In her absence, the Starkville
High School administration
and faculty have provided for
her class.
Retired teacher Dianne

Freeze worked as a substitute
in her class to keep the students up-to-date with class
lessons and procedures to facilitate a smooth return for
Ferguson.
The rest of the faculty
and administration has also
worked to aid Ferguson in her
recovery.
“A lot of my colleagues (past
and present) as well as my principal have been very nice to me
during the recovery process,”
Ferguson said. “Whether it
was through prayer, thoughts,
food, phone calls, etc., many
of my colleagues were very
pleasant in assisting me during
the process. I want to thank
those who did those things.”
Ferguson’s recovery has been
going well so far though not as
quickly as originally thought.
However, she came back to
teaching on Sept. 4, and is loving every minute of it.
Meanwhile, this series of
events that have unfolded have
caused Ferguson to see a more

“

“

nTeacher finds
strength in herself
and deals with
illness.

The doctor may
take the fee, God
does the healing.
-Sherre Ferguson

spiritual side of life. Being a
devout Christian, she extends
her thanks to God and prayer.
“I must begin by giving God
all the praise for the blessings
he has bestowed upon me in
the past, now in the present,
and also for the future,” said
Ferguson.
Ferguson feels that she also
learned the valuable lesson
about faith through this ordeal.
“This process has and con-

By Kelley Mazzola
News Editor

Across the school, the clamor of classes will quiet to a
moment of silence as an officer of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corp will come
over the intercom, asking for
a moment of silence on Sept.
11.
This moment of silence is to
remember 9/11, in which terrorists flew planes into the two
World Trade Centers in New
York, and yet another plane
into the Pentegon in Washington D.C. This moment of silence is to also remember the
heroic passengers of Flight 93,
who forced the hijackers of

their flight to crash in a field
in Pennsylvannia.
However, to assistant principal Sean McDonnall, it’s a
little more than just that.
“It helps put it [9/11] into
perspective,” McDonnall said.
“We lost a lot of American
lives that day, so I think a moment of silence is good to just
remember them, and let them
know that we’ll never forget.”
To Stacie Young, a cadet in
JROTC, it’s a way to express
her patriotism.
“JROTC teaches you the
importance of being a citizen,
so it teaches you to take pride
of being an American,” Young
said. “You take that and you
think about it, this was an attack on our country. As a
whole, you feel, like, sad that
it happened, but you just learn
from that situation that, ‘hey, I
want to protect my country, I

Ferguson teaches back at SHS.
Photo by Alisha Carter.

tinues to teach me that prayer
changes situations and that my
faith has become even stronger
as a result. What I would say to
anyone who goes through any
type of health problem is that:
While the doctor may take the
fee, God does the healing.”

p

9/11
Moment of Silence

Tusday, Starkville High
School

wanna do something to help.’”
Last year, it was the tenth
anniversary of 9/11, and,
with that in mind, JROTC had
a video played over the Channel One televisions across the
school, as well as announcements at the times of the terrorist attacks. However, since
this is only the eleventh anniversary, the leaders of JROTC
deemed a moment of silence
appropriate.
“It’s just a moment of silence,” Lt. Colonel Charlese
Webb said. “It’s just a moment
to remember that day.”

However, Young believes
that there should be more to
this anniversary of the tragedy.
“We’ve done color guard
at so many different ceremonies that they have,” Young
said. “But just a moment of
silence? There could be a lot
more done.”
However appropriate it
would be to some, McDonnall believes that a moment
of silence is going to become
a tradition, instead of a large
ceremony.
“I don’t know where you
would draw the line,” McDonnall said. “If we start digging back far enough I’m sure
there’s tragedies have happened throughout our history
that deserve that. I think a
moment of silence is appropriate, and I don’t have a problem
with it.”

shsjacketbuzz.com

Millsaps’ New
Teachers Speak
Up
I’ve been really

Charles Wright in mid lecture.
Photo by Alisha Carter.

JROTC plans moment of silence
nMoment planned
as 9/11 memorium

“
“

impressed with
students here. I
try to implant a
little of the real
world so it’s not
just a teaching
scenario.

As a new
teacher I am
really enjoying
it, this facility is
better than anything we had
even at EMCC.

I came to
Starkville for an
opportunity as
an automotive
instructor. I
really like Millsaps.

“

News

“

Page 4 • 09-07-12

@shsjacketbuzz

News

Page 5 • 09-07-12

Little’s cultural identity split
Half-Japanese senior Akane
Little’s parents met in a
strange way.
“My dad was an exchange
English professor at my mom’s
university in Japan,” Little
said. “She didn’t actually take
his class, but one of the teachers threw a Christmas party.
My mom remembers thinking
my dad was weird because he
ate dried fish headfirst, and
on the way home, he insisted
on holding her hands to keep
them warm. I’m just surprised she ever talked to him
again.”
The details of the meeting
– the American man holding a
Japanese woman’s hands, the
awkward American way of
eating, the curiosity resulting
from the social missteps – reflect what Little feels about
her mixed cultural identity.
The differences and opposing
messages she received from
American culture and Japanese culture used to make her
overly conflicted.
“Japanese people aren’t as
out there as Americans are,”
Little said. “They care more
about their own space, they

Little working her way through calculus classwork. Photo by Alisha Carter.

like being in a group, they
like to dress and talk like each
other. All that stems from the
island being small and not
wanting to be unlike each
other for fear of getting ostracized.
“America is much more individual-conscious. Our economic system is even set up
around it: the more successful
you are as an individual, the
more successful you are in
society.”
Watching Japanese television and spending summers
in Japan used to have her

switching gears and mixing
her mannerisms together, she
says, and she sees this as the
reason she felt so weird when
she was young.
Now, she just appreciates
both halves of her heritage for
what they are and just tries to
act like herself.
“I feel bad for the multicultural kids who are never exposed to the non-American
side of their culture,” Little
said. “My mom exposed me
to Japanese things, and I’m
really grateful . . . But I don’t
like something just because

it’s Japanese. I like what I like
and I don’t like what I don’t
like.”
And as proud as she is of
her background, Little does
admit that it has isolated
her at times. Her most vivid
memory of outright prejudice, though, was in elementary school.
“Teachers would get to the
part in history when we talked about Pearl Harbor,” Little
said. “Everyone stared at me.
I started crying.”
She points to the sixth grade
as the year she started feeling alone for being different,
when she “kept wishing that
there was someone else who
spoke Japanese and knew the
culture.”
In a self-contradicting attempt to both blend in and
show her individuality, Little
started making “self-degrading, racist jokes” when she
got to middle school. Now,
though, she’s grown out of
those jokes.
“Now, I find that humor to
be cheap, stupid and really
not funny,” Little said. “Like
when an Asian person does
something, you comment on
it, and they just say ‘It’s because I’m Asian.’ I wish they

“

How much you
identify your
cultural identity
with yourself is
how much people are going to
identify you as
that culture.
-Akane Little

“

By Cullom McCormick
Editor-in-Chief

would just let go of that and
be themselves. And I don’t
feel bad for them, I just get
annoyed with them. I wish
I could just pull them aside
and explain to them why they
should stop doing it. But it’s
not my place.”
Little’s social life has
changed to show such an attitude. For instance, whereas
she used to hold out for “a
half-Japanese guy who had
curly hair and rode bikes everywhere,” now she has no
problem dating whoever she
gets to know and like best,
regardless of skin color or
culture.

Little says she hasn’t even
noticed anyone stereotyping
and dismissing her achievements as being solely because
of her ethnicity (as people
sometimes do with Asian
teenagers), which she believes
is because she doesn’t harp on
it to fit in anymore.
“It hasn’t been bothering
me because I haven’t been
hearing it,” Little said. “How
much you identify your cultural identity with yourself is
how much people are going
to identify you as that culture.
With the state of mind that I
have now, I’d be incredibly
annoyed if people said something like that to me or made
assumptions that I did certain
things because I’m Asian. No,
it’s because I’m me and I want
to do it. It’s because that’s
what makes me tick, not because I’m Japanese.”
Still, though, Little says she
sees other Asian teenagers
doing this, kids who she still
wishes she could pull aside
and shake.
But it’s still not her place.
And despite her annoyance, it
all boils down to her wanting
others to just be themselves
so they could be as happy as
she is.

For the past couple of years,
Brenda Jackson has been
teaching chemistry as one of
her three classes during the
day. However, there seems to
be a change in schedule.
“Assigning classes would
be just a qualification thing,”
assistant principal Sean McDonnall said.
“It was mostly because of
the conflict of who was needed to teach what in the most
needed subjects,” Jackson
said. “It was a certification
conflict; the only way you can
teach a physical science is to

have a 182 or a 189. I’m certified to teach in all areas.”
As to who is teaching what,
that shift operates similarly
to a supply and demand formula.
With the new growth of the
school and greater number
of students taking one science class over another and
so teachers had to be moved
around to deal with this.
This isn’t always limited
to the science department,
though this year changes in
the science department are
more noticeable than in others.
However, end result is that
Jackson now teaches Phys-

ics, Physical Science, and Advanced Placement Biology,
leaving Chemistry with some
of the other science faculty.
“This year there are three
new people in the department. Any time you have that
number of new hires, the
department is going through
a transition phase,” Jackson
said.
Though this uncertainty
could possibly negatively affect some faculty, Jackson
embraces the changes.
“I don’t know from year to
year what I’m going to teach
anyway,” Jackson said. “I could
teach anything really, I love it
all.”

Jackson manages her Physics I classroom as they go through a lesson in the morning. Photo by Alisha Carter.

Page 6 • 09-07-12

News

!"#$%&'(()*!+,--(*.'/"$'+"*
SHS
grows by
0-12(#3-4*54+$)#/)*
Starkville
School District
.'/"$'623-4*
Population Distribution

Other
Schools

%&$
SHS

!"#$

“

shsjacketbuzz.com

204 students
This year alone, 255 new students have enrolled in the
Starkville School District. 204 of those alone enrolled at SHS.
By Ashley Rude
News Writer

Starkville High School started the year off with 204 more
students than last year. 1,288
students attend SHS verses the
1,084 students from last year.
Many blame the sudden increase on the freshman class
which grew by 66 from last
year, the most of all the classes.
Juniors had 47 extra, 39 seniors, and 27 sophomores.
The sudden population increase has left administrators
and teachers thinking of solutions for crowding.
“I’m trying to make sure

everyone has textbooks and
desks in all the classrooms,”
assistant principal Avence Pittman Jr. said.
Classrooms are overrun with
students. Algebra II teacher
Xavier Tillman has packed in
as many students in her classroom as possible.
“I have someone seated at my
podium, someone seated at my
desk, I brought extra desks up
to the front of my room and
I actually brought in a couple
of tables for kids to sit at,”
Tillman said “So everywhere,
every nook, crook and corner
I can find.”
The problems caused by
overcrowding are overall a

good thing compared to downsides.
Principal Keith Fennell not
only believes the student body
has increased due to freshmen,
but also because of the opportunities offered by the school.
“We do provide a comprehensive educational experience and I think people will
recognize that in the immediate surroundings and prefer
to be part of the Jacket Nation because of that,” Fennell
said. “So when they have that
opportunity to, I think they
will pursue that opportunity
in efforts to land in the location where the best education
is provided.”

I’m trying to make
sure everyone
has textbooks and
desks in all the
classrooms.
-Avence Pittman

Starkville High School’s increased population shows best during lunch, when the cafeteria is loaded with the extra students. Photo by Robert Dandass.

Warren considered retirement

“

By Jareth Murrell
News Writer

Veteran teacher Sally Warren teaches English II students about poetry.
Photo by Robert Dandass.

English II teacher Sally Warren, despite looking young and
beautiful, could very well have
retired this year.
However, she decided to
stay.
“I think you know when it’s
time to leave: when you can’t
stand to see your students
any longer and every obstacle

becomes something that you
don’t feel that you can overcome,” Warren said. “I just
haven’t reached that point yet.”
Warren said continuing
teaching has been a positive aspect of her life.
She also looks forward to the
future rewards of continuing to
teach here at SHS.
Specifically, she would like
to teach at SHS long enough to
see her son attend the school.

Her son being in the eighth
grade, it won’t take too long
for Warren to have a chance
to teach her son or accompany
him in his high school years.
As for what Warren would
be doing if she had retired, she
wouldn’t be ending her career.
Warren would instead be extending her passion for teaching and taking advantage of
other opportunities.
“I would have to work,” War-

ren said. “Maybe I’d teach at
Mississippi State University.”
Warren feels that this would
be something she would look
into when she does finally retire from SHS.
For now though, Warren is
content with continuing to
have her position as an English
Teacher at SHS.
“For some reason, I still like
my students, and I love SHS,”
Warren said.

News

@shsjacketbuzz

Page 7 • 09-07-12

Millsaps loses three, Cheeks returns to SHS
still set for new year
By Jareth Murrell
News Writer

By Ashely Rude
News Writer

The Starkville High School
BEST robotics team lost three
valuable members from last
year: CEO Nick Elder, builder Joey Pritchet and lead programmer Abdalla Sherif.
Pritchet worked tirelessly
for the entire group to complete the robot’s booth in
time.
“Joey was good in the booth
construction, but now this
year we have the booth, so all
we have to do is change it to
whatever the theme is,” advisor Denise Adair said.
While Pritchet focused
his strengths on the building
aspect of the competition,
Sherif channeled his talents
towards programming the
robot.
By the time he was done,
the robot ran well.
“If it wasn’t for Abdalla,
we wouldn’t have the robot
in the running condition by
the time we did,” marketing
director Nick Kolbet said.
Sadly, Sherif’s programming was not enough to bring
the team to a first place win.
The team only managed to
secure the People’s Choice
Best Booth and Rookie Team
of the Year awards, and the
robot’s true capabilities were
not demonstrated thoroughly
due to a small difficulty in
charging the battery.
As CEO, Elder had more
responsibilities than any other member. His loss leaves
a major vacuum within the
team.
“His job was to look over
both branches and make sure
that everyone was on task,”
Kolbet said. “To make sure
that we’re getting things accomplished in a very specific
manner of time.”
Elder left Starkville High
School and the robotics team
behind to attend the Mississippi School for Mathematics
and Science.

He will be replaced at the
beginning of the 42 day period to build the robot when
the team votes on a new
CEO.
While the loss of valuable members is regretful,
it provides opportunities for
newer robotics club members to step up and do what
they love.

Talisha Cheeks is the newest addition to Starkville High
School’s math dept. faculty.
However, Cheeks isn’t entirely
meeting
unfamiliar with the territory.
Tuesday, 3:15 p.m.,
“I was here in 2004 to 2007,”
Denise Adair’s room
Cheeks said. “I taught Algebra
“For 42 days it’s a lot of I to geometry, transitions, prework, but the kids get so algebra, any math course they
much out of it that it’s worth had, basically.”
Since being back, Cheeks
it,” Adair said.
notes the familiarity she has
with the school in its faculty,
students and general atmosphere.
“The whole climate is pretty
much the same,” Cheeks said.
“The whole culture is also
pretty much the same. There
are lots of familiar faces.”
Not everything is the same,
though. Even though the students and staff stay consistent,
policies shift from year to
year.
To help her adjust to these
new changes, the administration has provided her with a

p

Robotics

Former BEST CEO Nick Elder works on last year’s robot. Photo contributed
byVictoria Hearn.

!
!

!

!

!

Russ McReynolds, DMD

401 East Main Street

100 Brandon Rd. Suite E

Louisville

Starkville

662.773.6215

662.323.8065

"""#$%&'()*+,-*&./*#%*$

mentor for her to ask questions
to when she needs clarifications on new policies and other
changes within the school.
Cheeks has noted several significant changes since she was
last here. Some of those included more involved technology in the classroom as well as
the dress code.
“I love having the SmartBoard
and being able to use YouTube,”
Cheeks said. “I think that was
a step in the right direction,
especially in a math classroom.
There are so many things that
I’m able to show them now
and that they’re able to experience it with the technology. [It
especially shows] when we’re
graphing and when they’re
able to see a bigger perspective
on things.”
Even with these changes,
Cheeks still feels at home
here.
“The turnover rate is not as
great as in some places, as in
you go back the next year and
‘poof’ — all new faces,” said
Cheeks. “And that’s great be-

Cheeks uses her old skills to teach
a fresh concept to a class of her
new high school students. Photo by
Robert Dandasss.

cause it shows stability within
the school where people can
feel secure and safe, unlike
how they are in a new environment.”

Opinion

Page 10 • 09-07-12

Editorial

shsjacketbuzz.com

The editorial below is a written collaboration among all members of the Jacket Buzz staff.
Ideas expressed represent the majority opinion of the students.

Phone policy needs change
Starkville High School’s attitude toward technology has improved greatly in recent years. Unblocking YouTube on school
computers shows this best. However, the school’s outdated policy on cell phones still flies in the face of this recent progress.
The punishment for cell phone use is far too severe. Because
a student gets caught glancing at his phone, he has to report
to In School Suspension (ISS) for an entire day. Theoretically,
this would not be a problem, as teachers are meant to send any
work from that day to the ISS room. But in practice, this system is flawed in multitudes of ways. Seldom do teachers actually
send work to ISS, justifying their misstep by claiming to be too
busy for the inconvenience or saying it was the student’s fault
for misbehaving in the first place. A day in ISS also goes on a
student’s permanent record, which colleges will see and assume
was because of a fitting rules violation. Thus, the student suffers
academically as well as behaviorally, compounding this already
egregious punishment.
On top of the ill-conceived punishment for cell phone usage,
many teachers often don’t even enforce the rule. Many of them
discourage but conveniently overlook cell phone usage. From

one block to another, a student can go from a class that allows
listening to music on his phone during a test to a class that has
the phone confiscated for so much as having a suspicious outline
in his jeans. Such uneven enforcement sends mixed messages to
students who see the only difference between the rules in those
classes as whether they can text above or beneath the desks.
The rules on cell phone usage need either uniform enforcement or heavy revision. Almost every student texts, so why not
use cell phones educationally? There are websites that allow students to anonymously text in questions and comments instead of
speaking in front of all their peers. This can be a solution to one
of teachers’ biggest complaints: that their students won’t ask the
questions they need help with because they’re too embarrassed.
Teachers could just take students’ cell phones up at the beginning of class and keep them for as long as necessary, maybe even
until the end of the day. This would stop students from texting
during tests, one of teachers’ biggest fears.
However the school decides to handle cell phone usage from
now on, the Jacket Buzz staff hopes for the SHS faculty and administration to take a more levelheaded approach to this issue.

“Don’t worry. We’re just making you miss school for that
text to your mom. Just step inside for a little while and
wait for your teacher to send everything you need...”

Chick-fil-A donates to hate groups
LACHIEM:
A DIFFERENT
OPINION
AVERY
COHEN
If I turn on the news or even pick up a newspaper, I’m almost guaranteed a story about Chickfil-A. The same is true for Starkville High School.
In almost every class (especially around lunch
time), it seems to be a popular conversation topic.
On the news I hear all about the donations that
Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A, makes to not
only anti-gay organizations, but hate groups as
well. In class, though, I hear my peers raving about
Chick-fil-A and how they can’t wait to go back.

It worries me that the majority of the students
here at SHS have no idea where their money is going when they buy a chicken sandwich at Chickfil-A. When we put our money in the cashier’s
hand at the counter, it is going straight into Cathy’s
pocket, and what he does with that money is horrifying.
Dan Cathy donates millions of dollars to causes
like the Family Research Council, Exodus International and the Marriage & Family Council.
The Family Research Council, whose motto is
“Advancing faith, family, and freedom,” is classified
as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. A hate group is an organized group or movement that advocates and practices hatred, hostility
or violence towards members of a race, ethnicity,
religion, gender, sexual orientation or other designated sector of society.
As well as being advocates against Lesbian-GayBisexual-Transsexual rights, they are also anti-

Cullom McCormick
Editor-in-Chief

Kelley Mazzola

Robert Dandass

News Editor

Photography Editor

Jordan Cohen

Aaron Remotigue

Yearbook Editor

Rex Ames

Marketing Director

Sports Editor

R.J. Morgan
Adviser

divorce, anti-stem-cell research and many more
things. FRC is defined a hate group, though, because they strongly discourage anti-bullying campaigns because they work to prevent LGBT teens
from committing suicide.
Now, I realize that not everyone is pro-LGBT,
but when suicide is involved, someone’s sexual
orientation is irrelevant. The fact that the FRC is
against any type of anti-bullying campaign is sickening.
Is an organization like that really where we want
our money to go?
Just the other day I overheard a fellow student
talking about how her youth group had breakfast at
Chic-fil-A earlier that morning. When I heard this,
I couldn’t help but think about how much money
that youth group inadvertently donated to hate
groups like the FRC.
So I ask you, SHS: Is that chicken sandwich
worth it?

Staff Members

Starkville’s own local Chick-fil-A. Courtesy photo.

Statement of Policy

Jareth Murrell

The Jacket Buzz is published three times each semester by the Journalism

Angela White

The Jacket Buzz serves SHS as a forum for student expression. Opinions

Ashley Rude

Avery Cohen

Colin Damms
Alicia Carter

Shelby Adair

Department at Starkville High School. The Jacket Buzz is a student-run
publication committed to providing SHS with objective information.

expressed are those of students and don’t reflect the views of others in
the Starkville School Distict. Content decisions are made by student editors, and factual errors will be corrected by a retraction in the next issue.
Letters to the Editor are accepted and published, excluding those that
are deemed libelous or disruptive. Unsigned letters will not be published,
and all are subject to editing. Please email all letters and comments to
shsjacketbuzz@gmail.com.

@shsjacketbuzz

Opinion

Page 10 • 09-07-12

Underclassmen have advantage Voter I.D.
MAZZOLA
MANTRA
KELLEY
MAZZOLA
There are very few benefits for being a
junior in a senior-oriented high school.
The junior class is being infringed upon
because the senior parking lot is bursting at the seam from drivers of all ages
parking in it.
As a freshman, I enjoyed the perks of
having a sister who was a junior who also
had a nice car and a junior decal.
Now, myself a junior, I expected a
junior spot, since my twin sister and
mother lodged themselves in the front
of the line for a parking decal, yet I got
a sophomore decal, and a bitter taste in
my mouth.
Then, I realized how selfish I was being.
So what if I got a sophomore decal? It just
means that other people in my grade have
to park there, as well as the few sophomores who can drive and a longer walk
(which is better for me). Why was I so

mortally offended? Then, it hit me: I’ve
got the Seniority bug.
I never thought before I would get hit
with that infection; as a freshman, I took
the “abuse” of being a “Freshie” and, then,
as a sophomore, I never thought myself
“better” than the freshmen I knew and
talked to. In all honesty, I didn’t have
privileges that were associated with class
standing unless I wanted to go out of my
way to tease freshmen.
Even then, teasing freshmen was pointless. They were going to find out that
there isn’t a third floor or a pool in the
basement; haranguing them would only
alienate them from the upperclassmen.
In the long run, it would just continue a
vicious circle of freshmen tit for tat, and
no one would get anything done. Sophomore year only gave me a headache and
tired sigh, due to the English II state test
in December and Advanced Placement
European History tests every Friday,
as well as writing on the side as a news
writer.
To present day, I simply shook my head
at my own foolishness- what’s the point
in thinking about not having a junior
spot? I have a parking decal, I have a car
to share with my sister, and I have my In-

termediate. I can drive myself from point
A to point B.
As to seniority, I have a right to write
the English III research paper, perform
Trigonometry, and stress about the
news section of The Jacket Buzz. I’ve
got enough on my plate, with or without
feeling superior for being a junior.
After all these considerations, the
grade that has it best (despite being stereotyped as the worst) is the freshmen.
The freshmen have the easiest classes, as
well as the most slack among the teachers and students. “They’re freshmen.
Let ‘em be.”
Contrary to popular belief, the seniors
don’t always have it easy- they’ve got incessant questions of “Where are you going to college?” or “What do you want to
do after high school?” They’ve got college applications on top of the dreaded
English IV research paper, on top of other
duties to clubs and organizations. As my
prophetic sister said, “You’ve got it easy,
little sister. Enjoy it while you can.”
So be happy, my fellow juniors (except
the few lucky ones). We’ll be soggy on
rainy days, but, hey, we’ve got another
year till graduation. We can invest in hair
dryers until then.

Democratization unforceable
CULLOM’S
COLUMN

CULLOM
MCCORMICK
Foreign countries will not instantly
become Western democracies, and the
United States should stop expecting them
to do so.
The recent jailing of a Russian punk
band is one of the lighter illustrations
of this point. The group protested Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in an
Orthodox church and got a two-year jail
sentence. The Western world was shocked
and appalled at this (entirely predictable)
courtroom affront to freedom of speech,
but Russian society itself couldn’t have
cared less. In fact, the Levada Independent
Research Group conducted a poll that
found only six percent of Russians sympathized with the incarcerated rockers.
To use a more extreme example, look
at U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. The
Afghani government is a corrupt, theo-

cratic plutocracy that can’t control its
own people or the many terrorist cells
within it. The U.S., being God’s Gift to
Liberation, is intervening to oust these
cells and restructure the government. But
it isn’t working and the natives hate the
Americans.
That’s not to say, though, that countries
like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia will
never be truly democratic. It’s that outside
powers, like the U.S., cannot force them
to be something they’re not. The change
must happen from within these countries
or not at all. It took Western society over
500 years to develop to its current, comparatively egalitarian form, and the East is
still a couple hundred years behind.
Why are these countries so seemingly
backwards? Well, they’re not backwards
at all. Russians and Afghanis literally think
differently than Americans.
The West has been richer than the East
for just under a thousand years now. This
means that at various points the West
could afford to think about itself and make
reforms because it had enough extra food,
people and resources to contemplate nonessential things. They could forgo worrying about having enough food to survive

the week and instead think about how it’s
unfair for a government to have absolute
control over people.
The East, however, has had to scrape by
just to survive. They largely retained their
mindset of a select few being in charge and
controlling the rest because they couldn’t
afford to take the time off and philosophize on injustice – they’d starve if they
stopped working. Thus, the East has come
from a background of absolutely powerful rulers who allow little or no individual
rights and use religion to oppress their
people. Given, some Eastern nations are
more advanced than others, but even the
more advanced ones are behind the West.
These countries have never been democratic and have not had the necessary
social and philosophical advancement to
take that step.
Some of these places even turn to Communism, like Vietnam and China. However, many countries are actively working toward “Westernization,” so to speak;
Arab Spring being an example of this.
So the U.S. shouldn’t be surprised when
a band gets jailed for speaking its mind or
when natives don’t want more violent
change.

ineffective,
unconstitutional
A MODEST
PROPOSAL
JARETH
MURRELL
The next time someone goes to vote, they may find themselves denied of the very right to do so. Since 2010, 37 states
have passed laws involving voter identification, Mississippi
included.
The laws in question require voters to have both photo
identification and certain legal documents that would prove
their citizenship. The main purpose of these laws is the prevention of illegal immigrants influencing the democratic
process. Though this idea might sound good on paper, it fails
in its implementation.
The fact-checking journalism group News21 recently released a study recording the number of voter fraud cases of
the past decade. What they found was that within that length
of time only 10 allegations of voter fraud were found. With 16
million registered voters, that would equal to a 0.000000625
percent occurrence a year making voter fraud virtually nonexistent. Still, many of those in favor of these laws claim
higher percentages, even though they are false. The greater
fraud occurs in absentee ballots and voter registration.
Note who this affects. It does not, in actuality, counter illegal immigrants from voting. An illegal immigrant trying not
to get noticed is not going to pretend to be another person
so that they can submit a single vote that many think will not
matter in the grand scheme of things.
These laws do harm to legal citizens, however. Those who
misplaced their specific legal documents, cannot afford photo identification, or simply don’t have specific documents
will end up deprived of the right to vote because they can’t
afford it or because they don’t have pieces of paper with their
names on it embroidered with stamps, fancy lettering and
legal terms.
These laws allow those not having the provided materials
to pay a fee to receive them. This is a blatant poll tax, something that is outright illegal. The laws don’t actually address
the real problems: absentee ballots and corruption within the
voter registration system. They instead provide a ruse to look
like something is being done and restrict the amount of poor
and minority votes, which tend to go against the party that
proposed these laws.
These laws don’t help the country or stop fraud, but only
help the people who proposed them get a larger percentage
in the polls by cutting some of the competition.
Have an opinion of your own? Tweet to @shsjacketbuzz.
Have too much to say in just 140 characters? Email it to
shsjacketbuzz@gmail.com.
Your views could be in the next issue!

Sports

Page 12 • 09-07-12

Wilson critical for
Jackets on defense
Athleticism doesn’t come
naturally for a lot of people,
but volleyball certainly did
for sophomore Courtney
Wilson.
Wilson has only been on
the volleyball team for two
years, but it only took her
one-year to move up to play
on the varsity team.
Wilson has tallied up 39
digs this season alone. Wilson
credits her coaches with her
progress.
“The people who have
helped me most are Coach
Lauren Love, the SHS volleyball coach, and Jeanne
Sumrall, one of the Mississippi Juniors Club Volleyball
coach,” Wilson said. “They
have both taught me so much
about the game, technique,
and fundamentals. They have
also pushed me to do my
best at every game and every
practice.”

“

My goals are
mostly just
to be faster
than I was
last season
and to work
a lot harder.

“

By Aaron Remotigue
Sports Editor

At these practices, Wilson
works on her strongest part
of her game: Her serve.
“My greatest strength is
serving because my serves
are consistent,” Wilson said.
Wilson supports the team
with her serve, and she has
all ready posted 37 aces this
season.
Wilson says that her team
is “very encouraging” and
that she loves playing with

A recent Harvard study has
suggested that referees may
tend to make calls in favor of
a home team if a large crowd
is present.
Kevin Randall is the head
physical athletic trainer for
Mississippi State University,
but he also referees for the
Mississippi High School Activities Association. Because
he graduated from Starkville
High School after playing
quarterback in 1995, he cannot be an official for Starkville
varsity games.
Randall says that the study
doesn’t seem accurate to a
high school setting.
“I don’t think as an official
a crowd is going to sway you
much at a high school game,”
Randall said. “Maybe at a college game where the crowds is

much bigger. Most of the time
I can’t tell you who the home
team or the visiting team is—
honest to goodness—once the
game gets going.”
Not surprisingly, Randall
says that referees hear more of
coaches than anything else in
the game.
“The biggest thing you run
into in high school football is
noise on the sidelines with the

shsjacketbuzz.com

p

Next

match vs.
Calloway at the SHS
Gym

them.
However, she believes she
can be doing more to improve the chemistry.
“On varsity I feel like I
shouldn’t be making simple
playing errors like I did on
JV because varsity is more
competitive,” Wilson said.
“I need to work on defense
when [the other team is]
hitting the ball. I also need
to work on hitting the ball
harder.”
Defensively,
Starkville
High School is posting better
stats than last year.
In the 2011-2012 season,
the Starkville High School
Yellow Jackets posted only
29 blocks, but this year the
Jackets have already posted
35.

Local ref: crowd not factor
By Aaron Remotigue
Sports Editor

coaches hollering and carrying on,” Randall says. “It’s been
my experience in the seven
years I’ve done it that a lot
of high school coaches don’t
know the difference between
high school, college and NFL
rules.”
Randall says the coaches may
not sway referees, but officials
do hear much more of them
than the crowds.

We’ve all heard it a million times: soda is bad for
you. But just to reiterate,
one can of Coke has 140
calories and 39 grams of
sugar. That’s just as many
calories, and twice as much
sugar as one brownie.According to the Children’s
Nutrition Research Center
at Baylor College of Medicine, teenage girls should
be eating an average of
2,000 calories per day, and
teen boys should eat somewhere between 2,200 and
2,400 calories. So that one
Coke just took 140 calories
away for you to eat that day,
and you received little to
no nutrition from it.
When you drink that one
can of Coke, your body
breaks down the sugar and
a chemical called Serotonin
is then released into your
body, causing you to crave
more sugar. So that already
steep 39 grams of sugar you
just drank is now turned
into twice that number because of sugar’s addictive
quality. Sugar isn’t the only
culprit, though.
There are also loads of
high fructose corn syrup
in that tiny little can, and
ignore those commercials,
because high fructose corn
syrup is just as bad as sugar,
if not worse.
Since high fructose corn
syrup was introduced in
1967, our annual sugar
intake has gone up 25

pounds... per person.
So now that we know just
why sodas are so dangerous,
you go for another drink.
Instead of reaching for a
Coke, you grab a nice Lemon-Lime Gatorade because
it’s healthy, right? Take a
better look at the label. Yes,
its 50 calories look nice and
slim next to the Coke’s 140
calories, but its 21 grams of
sugar aren’t worth it. It’s
just a glorified soda.
The same is true for other “healthy” drinks. Take
Vitamin Water and fruit
juice. Vitamin Water has
120 calories and 32 grams
of sugar, and those couple
milligrams of vitamin C
don’t make up for it.
Most fruit juices are
packed with sugar, most
of which are only about 10
percent actual juice. So,
you decide to get 100 percent juice instead. There’s
real juice in there and incredibly real 35 grams of
sugar in there, too.
So what do you drink
now? I’ve basically subjected you down to water and,
God forbid, milk.
Next time, try a Coke
Zero or a Diet Coke instead of the original. Get a
Gatorade G2 Low Calories,
which has a third of the sugar a regular Gatorade has.
As for fruit juice, drink it
in moderation and it won’t
be too much of a problem.
Just make sure it’s juice,
not preservatives.
Drinking low sugar
drinks not only make you
feel better and give you
less of a crash in the short
term, but could ultimately
help lower and obesity in
the long term. So the next
time you’re just craving a
Coke, think about the consequences and the alternatives for it.

Sports

Page 13 • 09-07-12

Cross country off to racing start
by Avery Cohen
Sports Writer

This season, the Cross Country team has hit the ground
running -- literally. It’s barely
a month into school, and these
runners are fully charged and
ready to compete.
“We already started because we started working in
the summer,” Coach Caroline
Woomer said. “And they’re
practicing hard, practicing
consistently.”
Senior runner Haley Jenkins
concurs, saying she already
has a lot of miles under her
belt for this 2012 season.
“It started off a lot harder
than last season,” Jenkins said.
”I got into it really fast getting
my mileage in, and it’s just
gotten better from there.”

Even though the runners
have been practicing harder
this year, they got a late start
on the competition. The team
decided against going to the
annual Choctaw Relay meet
this year that traditionally
kicks off their competitive
season.
“I didn’t want everyone to
know how good we look right
now,” Woomer said.
The same is not true for the
meet this weekend.
“For the MSU Invitational…
we want to win it,” Woomer
said. “I mean this is like a
home meet for us we want
our girls to win it and we
want our boys to win it.”
Senior runner Damian
Grady is going to take that
to heart as he strives for first
place.

“I’m going to stay motivated
and win a state championship,” Grady said. “Training’s
going pretty well so far. I’ve
done pretty well. I think I’m
going to have a good year”
Fellow senior runner, Garison Arinder, has a different
way of looking at things.
“I’m just trying to improve
my time,” Arinder said. “I’m
not the best.”
Each runner is not just competing for themselves, but for
their team as a whole, which
makes training that much
more important.
“My goals are mostly just to
be faster than I was last year
and to work a lot harder,” Jenkins said. “It’s my last year to
make a difference on the team
and I want to actually use it
wisely.”

p

MSU

invitational

September 15
8 a.m. @ XC Course

The competition will be
tough for the MSU Invitational, not only for the runners to
beat their own times, but the
other schools as well.
But Woomer is still confident that her runners will end
up on top. That being said,
there are some previously
troublesome teams she plans
on keeping her eye on.
“I hate to say it, I really hate
to say it,” Woomer said grudgingly, a forced smile and a
wince crossing her face. “But
there’s Pearl and Madison
Central.”

The 2011-2012 football season was pretty solid for the Yellow Jacket offensive line. The
offensive line was consistent and
played as one. This year, offensive line coach Justin Moss and
offensive coordinator Preston
Leathers have their hands full
after three linemen graduated.
And with starter Kirk Kinard
injured and out for the season,
Moss and Leathers are working
from the ground up to build a
top-notch offensive line.
“All (of our players) have evident talent, it is just young talent,” Moss said. “We just have to
become more consistent.”
This inconsistency has been

the root of SHS football troubles
since the beginning of their season against Noxubee County.
“Every year it takes some getting used to but I love our offensive line,” Leathers said. “We
have got some good guys that
are coming along, and we are
already so much better than we
were a week and a half ago.”
According to the coaches,
these weaknesses will disappear
as the young players gain more
experience and learn to play as
one unit and not as individuals.
“Our first game, we started
a sophomore at left and right
tackle,” Leathers said. “Youth,
obviously, is a big thing but we
are getting better and better and
better- there is no doubt about
it.”

In the season-opener against
Noxubee County, senior starting quarterback Gabe Myles
injured his ankle after taking
some hard hits from the Noxubee County defense.
This injury gave the Yellow
Jacket players and coaches a
great scare.
Although the injury turned
out to be minor, Myles has
still been feeling weakness
and, therefore, sat out during
the games against Madison
Central and Tupelo.
During those games, Myles
had the opportunity to watch
from the sidelines, which is
not somewhere he is used to
being.
“I wanted to play (last week)
because Tupelo is a rivalry
and it’s my last year playing
but at the same time, I like to

watch the team work,” Myles
said. “Caleb did an outstanding job and so did the offense,
and thanks to the defense for
shutting (Tupelo) out.”
Myles will be back for tonight’s game against West
Point and this will be his
first time to suit up in three
weeks.
While the team wants Myles
to return, coaches know not
to rush the healing process.
“We hope Gabe will be back
as quick as possible,” head
coach Jamie Mitchell said,
“but we have to make sure he
is ready.”
After much practice, Myles
says he is 100 percen and
ready to take on the Green
Wave.
“I’m very excited to get
back out there because two
weeks is a long time to not
be playing,” Myles said. “I’m
always nervous before a game

so that won’t be anything
new. I just know that I have to
go out there, play my hardest
and have fun.”
According to Myles, the
West Point game was a good
game to come back on.
“I know the stadium will be
packed and it will be loud,”
Myles said. “It’s almost like
a championship type atmosphere so that in itself is a big
deal. I’m really excited just to
get to play in this game.”

Myles was relieved by backup quarterback Caleb Wilson
will lead the Jackets after
completing 66 percent of his
passes against Tupelo for 180
yards.
However, with so much
change in such little time, the
offensive line just got used
to the new playing style of
Wilson, and they are now adjusting back to Myles, whom
many of them have played
with for four to five years.

The pressure was on Friday night as sophomore Caleb
Wilson was replacing the regular starting quarterback Gabe

Caleb Wilson winds up for a pass
at practice. Photo by Alicia Carter.

Myles because of an injury.
“I was nervous at first, but after the first play I was alright,”
Wilson said. “It was hard following a Dandy Dozen like
that, but it was a good experience out there.”
Even though Wilson’s first
game as starting quarterback
ended in an 24-8 loss against
Madison Central, Wilson sees
the game as learning experience.
“It’s a lot faster than ninth
grade ball, and I just got to keep
working,” Wilson said. “It was
raining pretty hard, but I can’t
make any excuses, so I didn’t
throw the ball very well.”
The Madison Central game
wasn’t just a learning experience for Wilson, the rest of the
offense had to adapt to playing
with a different quarterback.
“Him and Gabe are very different, as far as Gabe’s a runner
and Caleb is more of a thrower,”
Offensive Coordinator Preston
Leathers said. “[The players in
the offensive line] have got to
work like one. It takes weeks
and weeks of just playing together and communication and
knowing rules. They’ve got to

learn their rules first and then
just play them together.They’ve
got to play like a unit instead of
just individual positions.”
Wilson not only has to get
used to playing with guys older
than him, but leading them as
well.
“It’s different because I normally lead people my age, but
it’s just something you’ve got to
learn to do,” Wilson said.
According to Leathers, this
transfer is going smoothly.
“Caleb’s a natural leader,”
Leathers said. “He’s gotten in
there, and you can tell when
he’s in the huddle people are
listening to him and going
through things as business as
usual.”
Wilson’s offensive leadership
might be hereditary. His father,
Chris Wilson, is the defensive
coordinator at Mississippi State
University and was at his son’s
first game last Friday.
“His understanding of the
game is awesome,” Leathers
said. “Last year was actually his
first year to play QB as a ninth
grader. He didn’t play quarterback in seventh or eight grade
so it was new for him last year.

He’s come so far. His accuracy
passing-wise is very, very good.
[His] decision-making is really, really good. All that really
lacks is he’s just got to get better with his feet. Being so tall
– and being young and tall – it
just takes a lot of young players
time to grow into their bodies
or what not.”
The team is still trying to
improve to have a successful
season.
“Every year it takes getting
used to,” Leathers said. “But I
love our offensive line. We’ve
got some good guys up there.
We’re already so much better
right now than we were [during
the Madison Central game] it’s
not even funny. I think our first
game we started a sophomore
at right guard and a sophomore
at left guard, so you know [the
team has] youth, but obviously
but they’re very, very talented.
They’re going to get better and
better and better, there’s no
doubt about it.”
The Jackets might have gotten
off to a rocky start, but they are
looking onward and upward.
“I plan on trying to win the
game this Friday,” Wilson said.

On Aug. 25, the SHS swim
team went to their first meet
of the year in Clinton, finishing second overall to Madison
Central.
It was a valuable experience
for the newcomers to be in
a competition and learn how
swim meets work. Points are
earned depending on which
place the competing school
finishes in for each event. At
the end of the meet the points
are totaled up, and whoever
has the most points wins.
“I think we performed as we
were expected,” senior swimmer David McKell said. “We
mostly just need to get back in
form. Most of us don’t do any

competitive swimming with
other teams after high school
season, so a lot of swimmers
haven’t competed since last
season.”
Senior swimmer Mark Anne
Hobart, who had shoulder
problems last year, is “feeling
a lot better” this season.
“I feel like an actual swim
captain this year since I’m
contributing so much more,”
Hobart said, “and we had a
great first performance.”
Although eight seniors are
beginning their final year, this
was the first meet for several
swimmers.
“They’re improving and I
expect them to keep improving over the course of the season,” McKell said.
Hobart is also impressed

with the younger swimmers.
“They’re putting in lots of
hard work and have potential
to become assets to the team
this year and in the future”,
Hobart said. “We’re all being
very supportive of each other

by Colin Damms
Sports Writer

Charlie Henderson, the junior kicker for the Starkville
high school Yellow Jackets,
attended a camp this past
summer to improve his kicking.
Retired kickers were
counselors who taught drills
on how to improve the kids’
abilities and give tips to punters and long snappers.
Last season Henderson
gradually became the starting field goal kicker while
Senior Daniel Fumo did
kickoffs.
Henderson’s improving accuracy was key to reaching
the championship game.
However, there is bound
to be more competition this
year with four other kickers
on the team.
Charlie’s instructor was
Ray Guy, a three time Super
Bowl winning punter with
the Oakland Raiders.
At the start of his career,

guy was a first round draft
pick from the University of
Southern Mississippi.
“I kicked a lot of balls,”
Henderson said, “and we did
a lot of drills. I’ve got potential for far ones.”
Ray Guy was the last kicker/punter to be selected in
the first round of the NFL
Draft and the only kicker to
hit the video screen at the
Super Dome in New Orleans. He was a seven time
Pro-Bowler during his career
from 1973-1986 with the
Oakland Raiders and helped
win the Super Bowl in 1977,
1982 and 1984.
“You can tell by his presence he’s a legend,” Henderson said, “He’s very personable and patient.”
Henderson is excited about
this season, and he is perhaps
a kicker for the future as
well.
When asked if he wanted
to play in college, Henderson said, “Definitely, if the
opportunity arises.”

and they’re doing very good.”
The Yellow Jackets competed at the Jackon Yacht Club on
Tuesday, and the Jackets are
expected to compete in their
next competion at Tupelo
next week.

Senior capt. Mark Anne Hobart opens up her season at the Clinton
Invitational. Photo by Avery Cohen.